


mexican suns

by winterbones



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M, Minor Spoilers, post S1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 04:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1674506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterbones/pseuds/winterbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>if time does not heal all wounds, it will at least scar them over and you will carry on</p>
            </blockquote>





	mexican suns

_con el tiempo todo se consigue_  
-spanish proverb

 

They found a wad of cash rolled up in the glove box, multicolored scraps of paper that flutter in Kate’s grip. She spent the next twenty minutes counting them.

“Two hundred fifty seven _thousand pesos_ and some change.”

“How’s your math, little lady?” Seth had flunked senior trig. He’d flunked mostly things, honestly.

The strip of skin between her brows furrowed as she counted it out in her head. “That’s—that’s twenty thousand American dollars?”

Considering how he’d had thirty mil strapped to his side about three hours ago that wasn’t much, but it wasn’t bad.

Since north wasn’t really any option, not for him, and since Kate seemed convinced her place was in the passenger seat of whatever car he happened to be driving, they went south. Border towns in the review mirror as they charge into the heart of Mexico. He tried not to think about where Richie and his Queen-Bitch-Vampire-Snake-Goddess were.

Kate asked him about Kansas, about Houston, about Miami, even about prison. She’d never been beyond Bethel until this trip, where the biggest attraction had been daddy’s church. So he told her. About Kansas, about Houston, about Miami, and even about prison. What did it matter anyway?

 

 

 

 

The only thing he ever really bought her was cheap sunblock at a gas station. Three days with the top down had left red blotches across the bridge of her delicate Irish nose. Seth had spent most of his days outside, under one baking sun or the other, and knew he browned instead of burned.

Kate slathered it on, leaving white streaks across the dash that he bitched at her about, and kicked off her sneakers, throwing them over the side of the car, letting the wind tickle her toes.

 

 

 

 

They wind up in some little town outside of Santiago de la Monclova. They’ve still got money to spare but Kate’s growing prettier by the day and she was always taught _idle hands_ and all that shit so she finds a job as some dingy little bar, hired on mostly because she’s cute. A _cosita bonita_ always sold drinks better, and she got good tips too.

Seth spent an entire night teaching her how to mix drinks.

“I don’t know how to do those fruity _appletinis_ or _cosmo_ -whatevers, but I know how to make a mean rum and coke.” Cheap bourdon had always been the old man’s preferred drink. Seth used to measure it out. Three fingers and a splash of coke with four ice cubes.

“That shot was my first drink,” Kate told him, catching her bottom lip between her teeth as she concentrated.

Seth winced. Seth winced about a little things. She’d already told him, somewhere between the Twister and here, about Scott and her dad and fucking son of a bitch should’ve killed him when I had the chance Sex Machine. He’d told her about Richie, and figured it made them even.

“Sorry. That was utter shit. I’ll buy you top shelf next time, promise.”

He taste-tested each one she made, and Seth could hold his liquor but Kate tended toward more alcohol than anything else. She helped drop him onto one of the beds they had in this shitty motel.

“He was always keepin’ me alive, ya know?” Seth mumbled, rolling over. His mouth touched the curve of something—a leg. Kate’s fingers found their way into his hair, petting softly. “And here I was trying to return the fuckin’ favor and he just said—let me go.”

“I know.”

The old man had taken a sadistic pleasure in beating the tears out of Seth when he had been a scabby-kneed kid. It was a surprise to feel them burn at the back of his throat.

“Piece of shit.” It was always better to be angry than sad.

“I know.”

 

 

 

 

They moved, one little town to the next. From Monclova to Torreon to Luis to Mante to Hidalgo del Parral. Kate took bar jobs wherever they went and bought a book on Spanish.

Seth had considered just drinking until he forgot his own name, but that never sat well with him, remembering those days when the old man had been kicked out of Houston had squatted on that damn couches, cursing him and Richie and their mother. He wasn’t a man of many talents, but he was okay about being muscle, and there was always someone who wanted someone else strong armed.

“You’re an idiot,” Kate would say, but would clean up his knuckles anyway.

He bought her tequila, top shelf, to make up for it. It wasn’t like when it had been him and Richie. He’d know Richie like you knew the back of your hand, the staccato of your own heart heat. Kate had years of experiences, as sweet and sugary as they were, that he had no idea about. A cross around her neck, and a boy back whom who used to text her psalms.

Kate went to church sometimes, but she wasn’t Catholic. She told Seth had the _catedrales_ had made her uncomfortable, the spires and the metal workings and the _ancianitas_ in their black veils with their rosaries clutched in their hands.

Seth hadn’t even know what religion Kate subscripted to. Except it wasn’t Catholicism.

“I used to have a few friends that were Catholic in Bethel but it wasn’t—it wasn’t like this. When the Spanish came, and tried to Christianized them, a lot of the old practices were kept. Melded together.”

Seth snorted. “Sister, trust me, I know.” He’d never believed all that must in God anyway, just sort of clung to it because it was all he had left of his mother, earliest memories of her whispering _ave, maria_ into his hair.

He’d always been the sort to believe in what his eyes told him. His eyes told him that whether God was real or not, vampire goddesses sure as fuck were and his brother had run off with one to play prince of the underworld.

 

 

 

 

It just so happened that one of Seth’s jobs wind up crashing into the bar Kate worked at. Seth was a hell of a shot, even with one hand on Kate’s back keeping her pressed face-first into the floor. It was why he always had a job, it was why _he’d_ been approached this time. _El pistolero Gecko_. Apparently, he’d already gotten a bit of a reputation. He wondered if Richie had caught whispers of it. Seth had heard nothing of him.

Kate pushed herself from the floor of the bar, shards of bottle-green glass caught in her hair, covered in brain matter from the _hijo de puta_ who’d realize that one of the gunman was making sure the little bartender stayed covered.

“You alright?” he asked, and remembered the last time he’d seen her covered in gore, specks splattered across her nose like freckles—Jesus Christ had it really been almost a year?

“Yeah,” Kate said. Her lower lip trembled. “Yeah.”

“ _Gringo, tienes que enseñarle a tu chica como disparar_ ,” hooted his partner of the day, swinging his revolve around the top of his head.

He decided to teach her how to shoot, after that.

 

 

 

In between shooting lessons, she taught him Spanish.

“You live in Mexico, Seth, you can’t just refuse to learn how to speak the native language.”

“Yeah? Watch me, bite-sized.” He snapped his teeth at her to prove his point. “Wider stance, the recoil’s gonna be a bitch otherwise.”

“Don’t you want to know what all your,” she paused meaningfully on the word, drawing her pistol up with her eye-line, squeezing one eye shut. “ _Co-workers_ are saying about you?”

“I can figure it out. It’s usually some form of _you’re a fucking bastard_.” He waved a hand. “This ain’t the movies, Calamity Jane, keep both eyes on the prize.”

She opened her eye and fired.

_Blanco._

 

 

 

 

On nights Kate worked into the later evening, Seth looped around to pick her up. He found her, once, sitting on the curb beside another man with a guitar across his lap. A blood-red bandana was knotted around his right hand, long strands of dark hair covering his face.

“He’s a _mariachi_. He was performing in my bar,” Kate said. “He’s teaching me how to play the guitar.”

“ _Guitarra_.” The man supplied. Kate rolled the new word on her tongue, carefully enunciating her r’s and the long a.

“Ain’t he helpful?” Except Seth knew a gun hand when he saw one, and as delicately as those blunt fingers plucked at the strings he knew they’d be sure and harsh on a trigger. 

“You have a very _bonita_ girlfriend, _amigo_.”

“I’m not his—”

Seth grabbed her wrist, effectively silencing her words. “Let’s go, Katie.”

“ _Tenga cuidado o se la van a llevar_ ,” the guitarist called after them. Seth didn’t need a translation.

 

 

 

 

“You called me Katie.”

Seth was scrubbing the day’s dust and sun off his cheeks in the bathroom. He glanced up into the mirror to see her sitting cross legged on the bed. He dragged a hand over his damp face.

“Yeah so?”

“No one calls me Katie.” Her pause was long, and Seth doesn’t need to be physic to know where her mind is going. He’d heard someone call her Katie before. “My dad used to.”

“Sorry.” He’d never actually said it to her before. Sorry. _Lo siento lo siento mucho_. They were both so alone in this world, and it was all his fault. “I won’t do it again.”

“It’s alright,” Kate said softly.

Water dripped down his collarbone, settled beneath his shirt, as he crossed the room to her. She watched him with her big, sad eyes and he thought about the day she asked to come along. They'd buried a lot of things in unmarked graves since then. A year older, and still so raw. He could still feel Richie’s teeth in his neck. _You taste like shit._

“Seth.” Kate reached up, curling her fingers into his white shirt. He’d given up suits, had settled for jeans. He kept the dress shirt, though, because Kate kept buying them for him. She tugged. “Kiss me.”

He did, one knee lifting and pressing onto the bed to level himself over her, hands framing either side of her small, lithe body. He pressed his lips to her chin, to her nose, and then to her open mouth where she was waiting.

Her legs framed his hips, urging. “Please. _Te deseo te necesito_ ,” she said, mouth coasting over his throat.

Seth didn’t need a translation. He knew what she meant.

 

 

 

 

Kate dozed in bed, and Seth stepped out onto the patio for fresh air. Far below them, he caught the mariachi strumming the cords of his guitar. The music was carried upward on the wind, into the room. Kate mumbled sleepily and rolled over, hand searching for his on the bed. He’d go back and join her in just a minute.

Just a minute.

_“my love leave yourself behind,_  
 _beat inside me, leave you blind_  
 _mi amor, has encontrado la paz_  
 _que usted estaba Buscabas consuelo”_

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. i have a problem i know i am currently seeking help for it  
> 2\. one of the best things about fdtd is that it's a truly bilingual show i wanted to capture that  
> 3\. the lack of translations for the code switches are intentional most of them can be figured out  
> 4\. that said i am not a native speaker, nor even a novice one, all spanish here is a result of my limited knowledge, friends' advice, google translate  
> 5\. thus all mistakes are my own  
> 6\. is that mariachi really _EL_ mariachi? i don't know maybe just kidding i know i'll never tell probably  
>  7\. again this was written for [annie](http://shewhodestroysthelight.tumblr.com/) who is in fact a big bully
> 
> EDIT: a HUGE (i'm talking cosmic size here you can see it from the andromeda galaxy) thank to [veronica](http://roseraiess.tumblr.com/) who helped me fix up my spanish and held my hand and was just generally a wonderful person


End file.
